Molecular dynamics simulation of interfacial thermal conductance between silicon and amorphous polyethylene

Using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, we study the interfacial thermal conductance between single crystal silicon and amorphous polyethylene (PE). We estimate that the silicon-PE interfacial thermal conductance is about 20 MW/m(2) K at room temperature, which is equivalent to the resistance of 16 nm thick layer of bulk amorphous polyethylene. We also study the role of solid stiffness and the bonding strength across the interface on the interfacial thermal resistance. With strong interfacial bonding, our results are in agreement with the diffuse mismatch model and phonon radiation limit predictions, suggesting that in this case, heat carrying acoustic phonons in solids have transmission coefficients to polymer equal almost to unity. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.